WHAT
WILL YOU DO IF YOU ARE ONLY YOUNG TWICE?
29, by Adena Halpern
Author : Adena Halpern
Title : 29
Genre : Fiction
Total
pages : 267
My
stars : ****
“What if you closed your
eyes, blew out the candles, and your wish came true?”
TAKE A
GLANCE:
“Ellie
Jerome is a young-at-heart seventy-five-year-old who feels she has more in
common with her twenty-nine-year-old granddaughter, Lucy, than her
fifty-five-year-old daughter, Barbara. Ellie’s done everything she can to stay
young, and the last thing she wants is to celebrate another birthday. So when
she finds herself confronted with a cake full of candles, Ellie wishes more
than anything that she could be twenty-nine again, just for one day. But who
expects a wish like that to come true?
29 is
the story of three generations of women and how one magical day shakes up
everything they know about each other. While Ellie finds that the life of
twenty-something is not as carefree as she expected, the sheer joy of being
young again prompts her to consider living in her life all over. Does she dare
stay young for more than this day, even if it means leaving everyone she loves
behind?”
MY
IMPRESSIONS:
This
book is a real fun and talking about mother-daughter relationship in a light
way, because for me, mother-daughter relationship is the most complicated one.
Another thing that I can take from this book is the real lessons of youth
–because I still young- and this book makes me realize that we have to live our
life –so that we have no regret behind.
I know that my relationship with my mother not
as complicated as this book tells me, but I can’t doubt that our relationship
has no problem at all. It is true that as a daughter, we have to be the best
before our parent’s (especially mother) eyes. By that ‘process’, sometimes we
lose ourselves and living the life of somebody else. Maybe for now it is not a
big problem since we always want to make our parents proud of us, but it might
be a problem someday when we look back on our life and regret something back
there. Up to this point, I have so many regrets –maybe not as big as this book
tells. If I ever had the chance to go back, I would go back to the day I was
born and change every mistake that I’ve done. But if I only have one day, I
would go back to –let me think- the day I joined the traditional dance lessons.
I shouldn’t have quitted that lesson because now I realize its benefits and I
just wanna make everybody around me –that love me and always support me- proud
of me, because at that time, I was a talented traditional dancer. Another
regret (maybe not regret, but I just wanna travel back), I want to back to my
childhood, I wanna play every traditional game that there is none nowadays. I
want to play as freely as I can, I just wanna play them all: I miss them. And
another thing: I want to go back to my high-school time; I regret I said
nothing when my teachers blamed me for mistake that I have not done. I regret I
did not shout or yell at them, I regret I didn’t tell them that what they did
is wrong, I regret them all, but they are little things that I have to forget
anyway.
From
this book I have a lesson that I have to live my life, to enjoy them with the
joyful heart. Sometimes I wonder what will I do when I find my gray hair (which
is I did, but only one or two, so not that surprising), when I look in the
mirror that I am no longer young. At the first time, maybe I will say that that
must be dreadful, but from now on, I will think that being old is something
that we couldn’t stop, although today we have so many anti-ageing cream and
cosmetics, but being old is something that we can’t deny. That’s why we have to
live our life from now on, so that we have no regret when it comes to the old
something. I hope, when I age, I still have youth in my heart and wisdom also
so that I can hang out with my grandchildren and told them my opinion based on
my experience, they would respect me as their grandmom, but they will always
share everything with me as a friend. I wanna be that kind of grandmother
someday, just like the combination of Ellie and Frida. =) LIVE YOUR LIFE!!!!! XD
“My
dear. May you have everything you want in life. If you should get it all,
however, and you still don’t like the outcome, don’t take it as failure. Take
it as something to learn from and move on. Believe me, no matter how old you may
be, whether you’re twenty-nine or seventy-six, no matter how many years you’ve
got left, trust someone who had to learn it the hard way: you’ve still got time
to change.”
A
LITTLE QUESTION AND MY OPINION:
- Inspired by the number of candles on her birthday
cake, Ellie wishes to be twenty-nine again for a day. What age would you
choose to return to and why?
>> 1 year
old. I want to live when I was the only children in the family.
- Ellie believes that if she can have just one day
of her youth back, she can erase her regrets. Do you think it’s possible
to make up for such regrets in a day?
>> maybe yes,
if we know what to fix, when is the right time, and how we fix it.
- Frida and Ellie have very different outlooks on
life and ageing. Ellie wants to go back and redo her youth, while Frida
believes that “what’s done is done”. Have their different marriages
influenced their outlooks, or is it a difference in personality? Which do
you agree with?
>> I think
both of them. For Frida, she loves her husband and thinks that she young again,
there is nothing she could do without him: her husband=her youth. But for
Ellie, the affair of Howard makes her think that life is unfair and thinks like
“if only I could go back in time” and change everything, doing something that I
haven’t done. It’s like the effect of Howard’s affair.
- Thinking about her marriage with Howard, Ellie
ponders which is better: to marry for love or to marry for security. Is
this a product of her upbringing in the 1950s, or is it still relevant for
women today?
>> I don’t
know but for me, marry for security still relevant for women today. For me,
only love is not enough. Marriage is happiness, how could you be happy when
you’re insecure?
- Ellie cares greatly about presentation and image,
and has had some cosmetic surgery done. What are your feelings on
plastic/cosmetic surgery? Do you plan to take advantage of such procedures
as you age?
>> my feeling
is good, I mean, it’s good for women to do anything to make them feel good. But
I don’t think that I would do that, because I am grateful for what I am today,
and I will always be, and I hope my partner will accept me just the way I am
and not even suggest me to do that.
- As Ellie’s day comes to a close, she fantasizes
about staying young and running away with Zachary, but in the end she
chooses her old life. Did she make the right decision? What would you have
done in her place?
>> I think
yes. She would have so many people she loves behind if she running away with
Zachary: Lucy lost her dearest grandmother, Barbara lost her mother that she
loves so much, and Frida would be alone in her old days without a bestfriend
who understands her. I would have done the same if I were her.
- After finding the cards and notes that Howard
saved over the years, Ellie comes to the conclusion that he was her
soulmate, despite all his flaws. Is she just resigning herself to the
reality of the past, or is the proof of his love for her really enough to
make up for his affairs?
>> maybe
Ellie thinks the second, but for me, that is her resigning to her past. I mean,
she tried to be wise, and kill other thoughts that might make her feel bad
about her decision.
- Ellie notes that being seventy-five gets her
special treatment, and that this makes her feel old. Is this truly a bad
thing? How does our society treat the elderly, and what needs to change?
>> it’s not
bad, but to be honest, I would hate to be the center of attention when we try
to be independent. I mean our society think that elderly are weak and need
their (society) help in everything, and they are so slow, they are old-school,
and they are just something that in a queue to the door of the death, just
counting the days down. That’s what they need to change. Elderly is also human
beings, they have their own lives, privacy, and ideology that no one should
disturb. They also wanna live their lives, not the life that full of your pity
(that’s how we look them, right? pityful).
NICE
QUOTES:
·
“I regret I didn’t show her
that working was important, not just for money’s sake, but to do something for
yourself.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“Believe it or not, it was almost accepted for a man to have an
affair, but oh, no, never a woman.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“How wonderful it would have
been to have someone in my life who wrote me love letters.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“How marvelous it would have
been to just have that thrill of someone else finding me attractive.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“Don’t we all regret our lives
in one way or another and wish we could go back and change them?” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“My head was everywhere, I was
so mixed up.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“Today is my day of being
selfish, and what I say goes.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“The job for the man is to show
the lady a nice time. The job for the woman is to look like she appreciates it.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“Oh, wonderful, we’re lost!
That’s it. That’s all we needed.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“A moment comes in everyone’s
life when they realize they’re old. I’m
not talking about the day you see your first gray hair or the day you see the
hint of a crow’s foot. What I’m talking about is the day when you realize
you’ve grown out of being able to adapt to something new.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“My days of miniskirt were
over. I never wore that dress again. That was when I knew there was no turning
back. I was officially older. Until today, of course.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“No matter how old your child
gets, she’s still your child.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“Everything is fine here. Sometimes
we all just need some time without questions or problems to solve for everyone
else. Sometimes we just need to shot out the world and take some time for
ourselves.” -29, by Adena
Halpern
·
“what’s done is done.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“change is always good.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
We live, we learn, we move on.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“Naivete is one thing. Knowing
what’s right is completely different.”
-29, by
Adena Halpern
·
“sometimes you have no choice
in life but to stay where you are and work it out.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“There comes a point in a
person’s life when they stop accepting new ideas.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“Husbands are wonderful, but
some of them stray. A true friend? She’s the only one who will never let you
down.” -29, by Adena Halpern
·
“It’s wonderful to have a lot
of different friends, but it’s most important to have one friend who will be
there for you through good times and bad.” -29, by Adena Halpern
